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THE SHEARMEN AND THE FRAMEWORK KNITTERS 661 
firmly established that there was no need to strengthen it by AD Sie 
legislative sanctions®. ’ 
255. Parliament was also called upon to decide on the 
policy which should be pursued in regard to the use of 
machinery for dressing and finishing the cloth. A statute of The use of 
Edward VI had prohibited the use of gig-mills, and about an 
1802, when a machine which bore the same name was intro- DY vas 
duced into Wiltshire, it gave rise to a good deal of rioting ; permitted, 
though, as it appears, similar machinery had been in use for 
some time in Gloucestershire? It was not quite clear whether 
the new machines were identical with those which had been 
prohibited in Tudor times®; but the attention of the parlia- 
mentary Committee on the subject was chiefly directed to the 
quality of the work dome. When the members were once 
convinced that machine work did not injure the fabric and 
wrought as well or better than the hand, they were entirely since they 
. @ . x . did the 
disinclined to support the workmen in their demand for the work wel: 
enforcement of the old prohibition of gig-mills, or to recom- 
mend that action should be taken. 
This Committee of 1806 felt bound to allude at some 
length to the troubles which had arisen in Yorkshire, in con- but Je 
. . . . . new 
nection with the introduction of shearing frames. These Sai 
were undoubtedly a new invention, and as such lay outside fremar? 
the precise sphere of the Committee's enquiries. Mr Gott had 
introduced them at Leeds*, and the employers, who adopted 
them, could dispense with some of their men. In this, 
as in other departments of the woollen trade, there could 
be no hope that manufacture would expand, so that more 
i Parl. Debates, xxvi1. 564. 
) Reports (Woollen Clothiers’ Petition), 1802-8, v. 254: 1806, mt. p. 8. 
3 Reports (Woollen Clothiers’ Petition), 1802-8, v. 251. The subject is dis- 
cussed by J. Anstie, in his very interesting Observations on the necessity of 
introducing improved machinery into the woollen manufacture in the counties of 
Wilts, Gloucester, and Somerset (1803), 68. See above, p. 297 n. 4. The London 
Clothworkers complained of the use of gig-mills in the time of Charles I. 
S. P. D.C. I. ccLvu. 1. 4. 
+ Bischoff, op. cit. 1. 315. Mr William Hirst of Leeds claimed that the cloth 
manufactured in Yorkshire before 1813 would not bear gig-finishing, as the West 
of England cloth did, and that he was the first {o manufacture a cloth on which 
she frames could be used with advantage (Hirst, History of the Woollen Trade 
during the last Sixty Years (1844), 17. He also claims that he was the first to 
ntrodnce spinning mules into the woollen manufacture, p. 89. The public 
recognition which he received shows that he rendered considerable services to the 
Yorkshire trade.